The floor covering industry has seen many improvements in the variety and quality of floor covering products. Unfortunately, the methods of installation have failed to keep pace with advances in the variety and quality of the available floor coverings. In particular, installation of floor covering still occurs using tools and methods that originated many, many years ago and have remained unchanged and relatively unimproved.
In a typical floor covering installation project, installers use tape measures to measure the area in which the floor covering will be installed. In doing so, the installer may jot down a few measurements onto a piece of paper for later use when measuring the floor covering. The installer then lays out the floor covering and attempts to transform the tape measurements recorded on paper to the floor covering. The installer then uses a knife, such as a hook blade or utility knife, to cut the floor covering to an approximate shape of the area where the floor covering will be installed. The installer then places the floor covering into the area and trims the floor covering in order to obtain a suitable fit. The floor covering is then fixed in place using an adhesive, tack, strip, or staple.
The age old method of installing floor covering significantly limits the number and complexity of installations which an installation team can perform in a given time period. The time required to measure, cut, trim, and fix in place can only be reduced by so much using these age old methods.
Further complicating the situation, the present number of floor covering installers cannot keep up with the number of installations, and a significant backlog often develops within the floor covering industry. The backlog results not because of availability of product, but because of the availability of capable, competent installers. Further yet, the competition for skilled tradesman continues to increase, and the availability of apprentices and journeyman desiring to go into the floor covering installation trade has steadily decreased. These trends combine to significantly limit the number of installations which can be performed.
Thus, it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method for significantly reducing the manual labor required for installing floor covering.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method for electronically measuring the area into which floor covering will be installed and cutting the floor covering to the desired size to fill the area.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide an electronic apparatus for measuring the area of the room into which the floor covering will be installed.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to include with the electronic measuring apparatus memory for storing the measurement data so that the measurement data may be transported for input into an electronic cutting unit.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide an apparatus and method for measuring and cutting floor covering in accordance with the measurement data obtained electronically by providing a cutting apparatus which reads the electronic measurement data from memory and electronically controls a cutting tool to cut the floor covering to a predetermined shape.